Pleasant Grove, Pleasant Grove CA

Original Research by School Decision on Pleasant Grove

Pleasant Grove is a small K-8 school of about the size one would expect in its grade band, located in a rural unincorporated farming community in southeastern Sutter County. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade, with a campus at Howsley Road that functions as the civic center of the dispersed agricultural area. The community itself has no downtown; it is a quiet crossroads along state routes surrounded by rice fields and grain operations, about a half-hour drive south of the Sacramento area.

Academically, Pleasant Grove shows a pattern worth understanding clearly. State test results from 2024-25 reveal strength in the middle grades and relative difficulty in the earliest and latest tested grades. In English language arts, proficiency is above the midpoint among Sutter County districts overall. Grade 5 students showed strong performance in ELA, and grade 7 results were also solid. However, grade 3 proficiency was notably low, and grade 8 dropped considerably. In math, the picture is more challenging across the board. Grade 4 and 5 students showed moderate proficiency, but grade 3 was very low, and grades 6, 7, and 8 all fell well below the county median. Science proficiency in grade 5 was moderate, but grade 8 was weak. The school's overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint among the county's schools that reported data, but a parent should understand that math performance in the upper grades, and the low performance in grade 3, represent areas where the school faces genuine difficulty.

The school's enrollment is quite small and stable, with roughly even representation across grades. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a population with significant economic need. The student body is diverse, with a white plurality and meaningful representation of Hispanic students, along with smaller numbers of Asian, Black, American Indian, and multiracial students.

Pleasant Grove Joint Union School District is very small, serving only this one K-8 school. Students who complete eighth grade move to East Nicolaus High School District for high school. The district sits in the path of significant future growth: the large Sutter Pointe development, approved and now under construction to the south, is expected to eventually bring thousands of new residents and new housing to the area, though that buildout will occur over a period of decades. County officials anticipate the school district will be impacted at later phases of development. For now, the community and the school remain rural, small, and relatively stable, with a school that shows solid performance in elementary ELA but needs to address significant gaps in early-grade foundational math and upper-grade math proficiency.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 558%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 724%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 47%

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 762%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Science

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 874%

School 74% · District 74%

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

This schoolPleasant Grove Joint Union, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.